Birthday bedlam

We are clearly bad planners. It seems that everyone in my family is determined to have their birthday within a nod and a wink of Christmas.

There is a small ‘glut’ of birthday activity around this time of year. The two boys, whilst fate kept them 7 years apart, still managed to be born within 4 days of each other’s birthday. In your face, mama. Nieces, sisters-in-law and husbands also thoughtlessly follow close behind.

To add insult to injury this week, we have all gone down with some vile lurgy like flies, one after the other. George spent his big day wrapped in a duvet on the sofa spooning Calpol down as fast as he could. Ollie nursed a high temperature to brave his party.

Another year older and no less my babies. I wonder will it always feel like this, even when they’re 30? Still in your mind as fragile and needy as the tiny creature you nursed and cosseted as a newborn? I expect so. I spend my days worrying about my dad, and I fully expect he spends his worrying about us in the same way he has for over 40 years. Once a parent……

A good birthday season has parties, and Oliver did go to the ball. A select section of his ‘harem’ from Nursery took to the Soft Play zone for a mammoth run about. Trampolining proved a hit, and a close second was squeezing Oliver’s mummy through tight-holed ascent to the top layer of the soft play area. Not a pretty sight. Cake and chips rounded off a perfect Birthday tea!

Oh, and a word on reaching 11. How depressing as a mother when the realisation dawns that your spiderman-batman-MrIncredible-Pirate-Soldier-Cowboy-DarthVader son no longer wants to prance about in a lycra outfit. In fact, he no longer wants presents to open. What he wants is hard cash. Wonga. Money. He has his 11 year old eyesfixed firmly on the unobtainable gleaming iPad prize, and is all set to chore his way to nirvana. We are but a hop, skip and a jump away from girls in the bedroom. Ouch.